Family, Kids, Teens » Elizabeth Halford Photography {the blog}

Category Archives: Family, Kids, Teens

Hampshire Teen Photography – Gracie

April 25, 2011 Posted in Family, Kids, Teens

“There’s nothin racy ’bout Gracie” ~ Her Momma For information about my photography services, visit me at www.GlacierCake.com Edited with MCP Actions Fusion Set. Posing genius courtesy of Skye Hardwick’s “Pocket Full of Poses” Posing Guide.

2 comments

Hampshire Child Photography – Country Boy

April 22, 2011 Posted in Family, Kids, Teens

“Thank God I’m a country boy” ~ John Denver For information about my photography services, visit www.GlacierCake.com. Edited with MCP Actions Fusion Set for Photoshop and Florabella Texures. Posing wizardry courtesy of Sky Hardwick’s posing guide for children.

3 comments

Hampshire Photographer – Friends & Family

April 20, 2011 Posted in Family, Kids, Teens

Our holiday was ah-mazing! We went up north to Yorkshire and visited our friends whose little girl has Rett Syndrome just like our Gracie May. Did a family photo session to say thank you for taking such great care of us. For more information about my photography services, visit me at www.GlacierCake.com Camera: 5DmkII Lens:...

2 comments

Hampshire Children’s Photography – Red, White & Cute

April 13, 2011 Posted in Family, Kids, Teens

For more information about my photography services, visit GlacierCake.com Image Info Camera: Canon 5D Mk II Lens: 24-105 L f/4.0 Time taken: 6pm. Sunset time: 7:30. B&Ws processed with Florabella’s ‘B&W Film’ actions from Luxe II and ‘scratched vintage’ texture from set III Colours processed with MCP Actions’ ‘Fusion’ set. Actions ‘crave’ and ‘sentimental’

8 comments

Donata - April 13, 2011 - 8:17 am

Amazing pictures! Love every single one of them! I can see that 5D is living up to your expectations! Stunning!!!

Jen - April 13, 2011 - 1:15 pm

Beautiful pictures, Elizabeth! Your website is so helpful. Did you use a reflector in any of these photos? Right now, I’m learning how to best achieve even lighting on my subjects’ faces. I notice that in several of the photos, there are catch lights in her eyes.

Lupe Ruiz - April 13, 2011 - 6:54 pm

wow! what beautiful photos!! thanks for posting them and the specs! ;-)

Renee Schick - April 13, 2011 - 7:02 pm

Beautiful. Love your blog. I read it religiously. :)
I was wondering, when you do a session for a client. How many photos do you typically edit for them to choose from? :)

kate si - April 14, 2011 - 4:42 am

Adorable! Love the fourth one. Do they make that coat in adult size cuz I totally NEED it.

Lisa - April 14, 2011 - 2:18 pm

These are all absolutely gorgeous! How did you like doing the session with the 5D? Any tips or quirks that you might have noticed that you can share with new users?

Michelle Moncure - April 19, 2011 - 1:32 pm

You have made me want to pull the 24-105 out of the bag again!!! Is yours a fixed aperture? I guess I didn’t realize the amount of bokeh you can get with that thing, or at least I was thinking I needed the 50mm 1.4 all the time for portraits, but I obviously don’t! These shots are gorgeous!

Back on my focus issues again…do you select a certain point for focus? The last shot in this series as an example, where was your focus point? I usually put it over an eye, but I think if there is contrast close by, it grabs that instead. Like it seems to like hair sometimes too and grabs onto that. Have you noticed that at all?

elizabethhalford - April 20, 2011 - 9:17 am

@Michelle: The 24-105 is great for portraits. The key to optimizing your bokeh is zooming in as far as you can, opening the aperture as much as you can and keeping the subject as far from the background as possible. You can achieve beautiful bokeh with any lens that way! Also, having a full-frame helps.

For focus point, I always manually select my point and try to focus between the eyes.

Hampshire Children’s Photographer – Nephewey

March 4, 2011 Posted in Family, Kids, Teens

My wittle teeny nephew. Edited with Florabella’s new Luxe II actions {LOVE LOVE!}

6 comments

9 ways I get meaningful expressions in child portraits

February 24, 2011 Posted in Family, Kids, Teens, Taking Pictures

“You will never ever hear me tell your child to say cheese” – Skye Hardwick I love photos of non-smiling children. Most of the images I have displayed in my home are of my kids not smiling. But the difference between a beautiful, serene expression and a grimace is a very fine line. I’m encouraged...

7 comments

Dealing with naughty children {and naughty daddies}

February 21, 2011 Posted in Family, Kids, Teens, Taking Pictures

Q. Do you have any tips for shooting naughty, unco-operative children that just DON’T want their photo taken and all the bribery in the world just wont work! .And also families? There is ALWAYS one who wont smile or look at the same time as everyone else. It drives my bonkers! A. Well for the first...

4 comments

kellytonks - February 22, 2011 - 1:11 pm

great post Elisabeth, I love the last shot, it gave me a smile!
In my small experience with families, but 25 years with kids, they’ll feed off your energy. Jokes are good and a mild “Poopy” joke will make all pre-schoolers laugh. In a tasteful way, I don’t leap right into that but it works in the right moment. Maybe the size of an elephant vs the size of a mouse?

I found on shoots some space away with kids helped to. , it We can chat helped and even my cousin of all people yelling, bribing over my shoulder made everything worse, but after a short but major melt down we were back in bussiness and got the shots, by chatting with the kids alone. I’m going to use your “uncle joe” line. Sometimes saying “just a litttle smile” or ” a nice big one for Mom!”

Kelly

Jolene - March 11, 2011 - 11:15 pm

Hi Elizabeth. I’ve just recently started taking pictures with my new Nikon and was in charge of taking the photos for my son’s destination wedding in Jamaica. I wish I had seen your site prior to going…it would have made my job much easier. Your insights and tips are right on target and I’d like to thank you for posting such beautiful pictures. I’m taking all your wisdom and trying to put it to good use in my own photography. Even though I’m no pro, the wedding pictures are quite beautiful and the bride and groom are very pleased.
Thanks again.

elizabethhalford - March 12, 2011 - 9:47 pm

@Jolene: Wow thanks so much! Email me any time you have questions and I’ll do my best to be there for you!

Krystal - March 24, 2011 - 5:54 pm

If the child is at least 3 years and up and they are acting up or getting nervous because there parents keep saying “don’t smile like that” I always tell the kids “does mommy and daddy need to go to time out” They always think this is the funniest thing ever and it kinda lightens the mood of and entire shoot. Plus it really helps the parents take a deep breath and calm down…I play the name game with the kids too. They always love it cause we usually start out with there mommys or daddies names. Also sometimes if a child is really shy i say hey lets go on a treasure hunt and we walk around for a few minutes and find flowers, rocks, or sticks. And as soon as I see they are comfortable I start shooting away…lol
I always have kids at the end telling me they wanna come back and play with me again its really cute.

Don’t miss the moment. MAKE the moment

February 15, 2011 Posted in Family, Kids, Teens, Taking Pictures

Q. When photographing kids, how do you get over the fear of missing the perfect moment? I get overwhelmed with worrying about missing the moment and I start forgetting about simple things like framing and exposure, and it’s really discouraging to see later that I caught the look but messed up the image in another...

4 comments

Kim - February 15, 2011 - 9:42 am

Wow thanks Elizabeth! These tips are great if you want to be consistent and professional..

Maureen - February 15, 2011 - 2:09 pm

you have mentioned this posing guide before, with out giving away any secrets can share a little specifics about this guide and why it is worth $400. I find the description on the website vauge. Thanks.

elizabethhalford - February 15, 2011 - 6:47 pm

@Maureen: Great question. I think it’s hard for me to say that anything in the world is WORTH it’s price. Is an iPad truly WORTH $400? I think not. I have one and honestly…I prefer my iPhone. But to some, it’s probably worth even more than the price on the sticker. For me, the Workshop Workbook was worth more than it’s price because I was literally throwing in the towel the day it popped up on my Facebook. I ate it up and put it to work immediately to change the way I was doing things. So can I say it will be worth $400 for YOU? Unfortunately, I can’t. But I can tell you what’s in there: she talks about posing, what to wear, the ordering sessions, ‘the art of pricing’, finding locations, using props and all that jazz. Now, I think the name could be better. I wouldn’t consider this a workshop workbook in that it’s not a textbook. It’s not generic or even all stuff that can be taught. I believe that when you’re imparting things of the heart, some things can’t be TAUGHT, they must be CAUGHT and if you open yourself to what Skye is imparting to her readers, you can catch a brilliant amount of information. It’s not a ‘this is how to do it’, but rather, a ‘this is how I do it’ from Skye who is an extremely talented photographer. I was very careful when I brought out ‘Shooting my Kids’ that I didn’t make any promises about how the DVD would tell everyone everything about photographing kids. I said ‘this is how I do it personally and I made a DVD so you can watch.’ The workbook is very much like that. You’re paying for the privilege of stepping into her heart and mind on how she does things. Now, the posing guide…man…that thing has saved my butt and I love it. If you want something to say ‘do THIS to make magic’, you want the posing guide! Hope that helps!

christy combs - February 15, 2011 - 8:38 pm

This is such a necessary post! I have a very definitive style and whether it’s with children or adults, much of my style is defined in my dramatic posing and expression capture. With young children there definitely is “luck” involved regarding their mood, but you can still be in control of the surroundings and setting up everything else around them to be what you have in mind when you can get that perfect expression out of them. Posing your clients isn’t “cheating” as some photographers call it, it’s a tool to making them look their best and I believe they will certainly appreciate that when they see their images. Plus it’s a great skill to be able to make posed models look great instead of “stiff and unnatural”. Thanks for sharing your view on this!

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Elizabeth Halford Photography {the blog} » pho•to•gra•phy {in real.plain.english}

Category Archives: Family, Kids, Teens

Hampshire Teen Photography – Gracie

Hampshire Child Photography – Country Boy

Hampshire Photographer – Friends & Family

Hampshire Children’s Photography – Red, White & Cute

Hampshire Children’s Photographer – Nephewey

9 ways I get meaningful expressions in child portraits

Dealing with naughty children {and naughty daddies}

Don’t miss the moment. MAKE the moment

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